This invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for allowing a trained emergency service provider to report emergency incidents and, more specifically, a method and apparatus for allowing an emergency service provider to electronically collect and record information regarding an emergency incident and generate a meaningful report of such data.
Emergency care is commonly delivered to a patient at the scene of an incident by trained emergency service providers such as paramedics, police officers, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), etc. These providers work within a community-based Emergency Medical System (EMS) under the supervision of a medical director who establishes operating protocols, oversees training, and monitors the system""s effectiveness. System effectiveness is assessed primarily by evaluating patient outcomes, often through secondary measures that are closely associated with long-term survival such as response time, protocol adherence, and time to delivery of effective therapy. Typically, such information is recorded manually by the emergency service provider in a paper run report including a patient information portion for recording personal patient data, a narrative portion for recording the emergency service provider""s clinical narrative, and an event log portion for recording each of the treatment events that take place during the incident and their associated times of occurrence. Consequently, the report captures the time interval for the EMS to respond to the call for help, the patient""s presenting signs and symptoms, the delay until therapy is applied, etc. The run report can then be later used to produce statistical summaries of overall EMS response characteristics. One example of a statistical analysis report based on a run report is the Utstein Style report for measuring response effectiveness in cases where the patient has suffered cardiac arrest.
In order to generate incident run reports and statistical summaries such as the ones specified by the Utstein Style, raw event data must reliably collected, coded, and entered into a database. Often, the sources of raw event data are widely dispersed. Dispatch event information is provided by a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, while vital signs and therapeutic information events are found in medical devices used on-scene during patient treatment. Emergency service provider narratives are often written into run reports produced after the incident is concluded. It is difficult for any EMS system to collate these disparate pieces of information into a single database. Often the sequence of events and their exact times can only be approximated from the records. The event log recorded in the run report can be especially inaccurate, since it is often compiled after-the-fact, perhaps days later, from memory and written notes. Efforts to introduce electronic versions of paper run reports for on-scene event capture have not been successful because the equipment is bulky and expensive, its use interferes with patient care, and the menu-driven database interface fails to capture the full range of essential events needed. A particular failing is that the accurate event times are not recorded along with the events themselves, making calculation of response intervals inaccurate.
In order to more accurately record information critical to reconstructing incident events accurately, a more versatile, focused approach to electronic data collection for run reports is needed. The approach should provide for recordation of simple background information, such as the patient""s name and the incident location, as well as a summary of each event that occurred during the emergency incident and the particular time of the event. To be useful, the associated time should be accurate to within one minute. Finally, the approach should provide for capture of a clinical narrative by the emergency service provider which is the provider""s account of the incident, including the provider""s subjective appraisal, objective findings, and the assessments performed, and the provider""s planned therapies and procedures. The approach should collect all of this information, and merge the information with CAD and medical device data to populate the database needed for incident reporting and assessment of system effectiveness.
The present invention provides a computer-readable medium having computer-executable components for recording and reporting an emergency incident comprising a plurality of events associated with treatment of a patient during the incident. The computer executable components include an event recording component and a post-processing component. The event recording component records events as they occur during the incident, while the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component once the incident has concluded.
The event recording component records events by enabling a emergency service provider to input a plurality of event records, wherein each event record identifies an event which occurred during the incident and a time at which the event occurred. The event recording component also records events input by the emergency service provider as a predefined treatment protocol for the patient, wherein the predefined treatment protocol comprises a plurality of predefined event records and wherein each predefined event record identifies an event which is expected to occur during the incident and a time at which the event is expected to occur during the incident. Finally, the event recording component includes at least one subcomponent for providing information regarding the incident in addition to the event records recorded by the event recording component. The subcomponent may be an address book component, a drug guideline component, a medication identification component, a narrative story component, a stop watch component or a drug dosage/infusion component.
The post-processing component, on the other hand, enables the user to modify the event records previously recorded by the event recording component, as well as record additional information regarding the incident. In addition, the post-processing component incorporates event records recorded by an external source, such as a remote computer or medical electronic device, with the event records previously recorded by the event recording component. The post-processing component also exports event records to external devices, such as a remote computer, for further processing and record-keeping. Finally, the post-processing component generates a run report containing event records and related information recorded and processed by the event recording component and the post-processing component.
In accordance with yet other aspects of the present invention, the event recording component and the post-processing component enable the user to verbally input event records and related information.
A method and apparatus capable of performing actions generally consistent with the event recording component and the post-processing component described above represent further aspects of the present invention.